Dassault Systèmes Introduces Unique 3D Sketching Experience

CATIA Natural Sketch Revolutionizes the Way to Express and Communicate Creative Design Intent

PARIS (European Customer Forum) — November 23, 2011 — Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, announced today the availability of CATIA Natural Sketch, a breakthrough 3D sketching experience, that finally brings together the intuitiveness of creative 2D painting gestures and the power of accurate, realistic 3D modeling. For most designers, sketching is the medium of choice to express their ideas. By making sketching in 3D as intuitive as sketching on paper, CATIA Natural Sketch brings an experience that matches creative purposes while removing emotional barriers towards 3D creation.

“Dassault Systèmes is continuously striving to make the power of its widely recognized 3D creation solutions accessible to a larger audience with the right experience empowering designers with intuitiveness while enhancing their creativity,” said Anne Asensio, VP, Design Experience, Dassault Systèmes. “To turn dreams into reality we have successfully brought together forward-looking designers and Dassault Systèmes technology experts, resulting in registered patents and delivering this unique 3D sketching experience.”

This first-of-its-kind, lifelike creative experience helps designers to free up their creativity and share their ideas more rapidly and precisely.

“Enticing, inspirational, and intuitive! The strokes look like real pencil on paper and it’s great fun to sketch. I imagine that it would revolutionize the way I design every day,” commented Jens Paulus, Jens Paulus Design. “Maybe the greatest advantage is that you get inspired while creating 3D as you are sketching at the same time.”

Alexandre Meyer, automotive designer, added, “An incredible ergonomic step forward: easier than pen on paper. A powerful way of working with concepts! It is probably one of the first designer's mind-oriented technologies. This technology is transforming any creative workflow.”

CATIA Natural Sketch also eliminates workflow disruptions through the entire industrial design process. Transitioning from ideation to actual design is typically challenging. A sketched 2D idea can turn out to be not feasible in 3D and the process of constructing 3D models from an original 2D sketch is very time consuming and prone to design intent interpretation errors.

Sketching in 3D with CATIA Natural Sketch enables designers to better understand their design in 3D, avoid misinterpretations of 2D views, and better communicate their ideas to 3D modelers. It also gives designers and design studio teams the ability to use 3D sketched curves to create a model with surface modeling or subdivision surface modeling tools within CATIA. By directly transforming a 2D sketch into a 3D digital product, inconsistencies between the design intent and reality can be avoided, resulting in dramatic improvements in design quality.

Following the release of CATIA Live Rendering for interactive, photorealistic visualization a year ago, CATIA Natural Sketch is a key new element of Dassault Systèmes’ Live Design leadership strategy. CATIA Natural Sketch completes the CATIA for Creative Designers solution, which now combines 3D sketching, concept modeling, class-A surface modeling, rapid prototyping and visualization. CATIA for Creative Designers addresses the complete industrial design workflow in a unified environment, from ideation and concept to refinement, design validation, and final production-ready 3D product.

"Discovering the new CATIA for Creative Designers solution was very fascinating as it enables me to literally draw in 3D,” said Pauline Deltour, Product Designer. “It offers a direct translation of the idea I have in mind into the 3D world and takes care of all the uncomfortable steps of the process."

About Dassault Systèmes

As a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, Dassault Systèmes brings value to more than 130,000 customers in 80 countries. A pioneer in the 3D software market since 1981, Dassault Systèmes applications provide a 3D vision of the entire lifecycle of products from conception to maintenance to recycling. The Dassault Systèmes portfolio consists of CATIA for designing the virtual product - SolidWorks for 3D mechanical design - DELMIA for virtual production - SIMULIA for virtual testing - ENOVIA for global collaborative lifecycle management, EXALEAD for search-based applications and 3DVIA for online 3D lifelike experiences. For more information, visit http://www.3ds.com.

CATIA, DELMIA, ENOVIA, EXALEAD, SIMULIA, SolidWorks and 3D VIA are registered trademarks of Dassault Systèmes or its subsidiaries in the US and/or other countries.